Yes, the brigades have formed and gotten out of control in less than 2 weeks. There is an easy fix, if the Steemit website team would just look into it.
The absolute only problem with this type of posting is not crediting the author.
There is a fix for this that simply makes it easier to do the right thing, than to steal. The fix is EMBEDDING content, just like youtube videos are now but for everything, web pages, sound, pics, and video.
Embedding credits the author, provides a link to the original domain, and shares new content. Imaging being able to ethically share any page from ars technica, deviantart, colleghumor, dropbox, instagram, kickstarter, twitter, reddit, soundcloud, hulu, vimeo, ustream, vine, etc...
This fix would allow more content than any social network, and do it ethically by crediting\linking the authors page.
There is even an enterprise level business called http://embed.ly based on this new type of sharing, they turned plagiarism into a legal and ethical business and Steemit could too. Right now, for a monthly fee...
Here is a better description of the open source embed projects.
https://steemit.com/steemit-ideas/@tinfoilfedora/a-solution-to-copied-content-that-would-make-steemit-explode-with-cool-posts
http://oembed.com/
https://noembed.com/